SOMEWHERE I'VE NEVER TRAVELLED

I've had this album for few years, it was the 1978 Warner reissue, then I upgraded to the original on 20th Century with the pyramid gimmick. It seems my attitude towards this album has changed. I had no trouble warming up to their debut. Any fan of crossover prog will enjoy that, but for the longest time on their followup, I felt they overdid themselves, but then I started noticing how the music started to click in. "Cowboy Star" is a rather enjoyable song with elaborate arrangements and strings from Andrew Powell (who also did strings for the Alan Parsons Project, which comes as no surprise as Alan Parsons did engineer this album). "Runnin' Away" is a soft rock ballad, the kind the band did in an attempt to score a hit. ""Harvey" is a nice rock piece, but I think the biggest problem I have with this album is "Danse With Me George". I still find it a bit gimmicky, with all the Chopin quotes, lounge influences, and even flirtation with Latin music really through me off. Now I just get a kick off how utterly ridiculous this song is. For years I was wondering why the song title was spelled "Danse" instead of "Dance", and who was this George they were referring to? Turns out they were referring to George Sand, an author, a lady posing as a man (apparently women in 19th Century France couldn't be authors, so she had to go under an assumed name) who had an affair with Chopin, and the lyrics were on this romance, from the point of view of Chopin. So hence the French spelling of "Danse". "Can't Let a Woman" and "We Need You Too" are rather appropriate closers after hearing the ridiculous "Danse With Me George". Of course most people might only think of Ambrosia as marginally prog, given the hits they scored on easy listening stations, but I still can't see how fans of crossover prog would not enjoy their first two albums. The second one really needed a lot more patience to stick, and I'm glad to finally give it a second go and liking it much more. Their following albums are not prog, apparently. Life Beyond L.A. featured their major hit "How Much I Feel", but obviously that's no surprise they'd head that way, even their first two albums had straightforward songs in pop/rock fashion for hopes of radio airplay. Glad to finally say I finally enjoy their second album, but start with their debut first.